


Belonging

by nogoaway



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Angst, Collars, Fluff, Humor, Light BDSM, M/M, Oral Sex, Pining, Post-Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-23 21:34:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6130810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nogoaway/pseuds/nogoaway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The engraving is a thin cursive font; elegant, but not pompous or flowery. Even in the light it's small, and John has to squint to see. It reads: Belonging to Harold R. Wren.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <i>John feels his mouth quirk up. 'Belonging to'. Not 'Property of'. It was the kind of distinction that Harold was always concerned with. Of course he'd have something engraved custom rather than put his name, even a false one, to a statement he didn't believe. Bear wasn't anyone's property. But he belonged somewhere. He belonged to someone.<i></i></i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It's Shaw, of all people, who starts it.

She's camped out on a fire escape across from their mark's house, chewing coolly at a hunk of rib-eye speared on the sloped tip of a KA-BAR. John eyes it hungrily. He hasn't eaten since last night. He's been busy. "Where did you get that?"

Shaw jerks her elbow towards the open window. "Dunno who keeps a stocked fridge when they're going away for a week."

"Rich people," John explains, settling down next to her and retrieving the binoculars. They're set to her small face. He pulls them wider. Roland's still on his futon, snoring away. "I meant the knife."

Shaw shrugs. "Who cares?"

"It's standard issue."

"It's not yours, John. Unclench."

John slides his gaze away from Roland's collection of 80's hair metal posters to cast a pointless reprimand at her.

Shaw meets his eyes unflinchingly and smiles her fake, 'I don't care enough to even poorly approximate humanness' smile. "Although I did move your Browning to the History section. You should update your arsenal, by the way. It's not the Cold War anymore." She makes a show of looking him up and down, black shoes to slacks to generic suit. "Although some people are still stuck in a le Carre novel."

"Speaking of updates at the Library," John says, desperate to change the subject. "Are you responsible for Bear's new collar and--" what had Harold called it? "that cow femur?"

Shaw just raises her eyebrows and takes another violent bite of the steak, her white teeth bared. She chews, slowly and obviously.

"He's my dog," John reminds her, more than a little annoyed.

Shaw doesn't bother swallowing before she speaks. John refuses to look away from the mouthful of pulverized meat. He has never won a staring contest with Shaw, but he's not going to just start giving up, either. "No, he's Harold Wren's dog, which means he's nobody's dog." She swallows, finally. "Besides, he likes me best."

The lights go on in the apartment next to Roland's, and John gives up the staring competition, because whoever is currently in Mrs. Vanderhueval's kitchen, they are at least 5'11, 160 pounds, and dressed entirely in black from combat boots to balaclava; that is, definitely not Mrs. Vanderhueval.

"Killing the night watchman in broad daylight," Shaw pants, as they drop two stories into an open dumpster and take off across the alley "Classy."

"I'll take the front," John offers, since she's already got hold of the building's drainpipe and started scaling up the back. 

* * *

  
The M1911 isn't just in the history section, it's between two extremely dusty, and extremely large, compendia on early Soviet economic planning. 

"Very funny," John says, and retrieves his firearm. Guess he knows what he's cleaning, next.

Bear clicks down the aisle after him, tail thumping against either side of the stacks, stirring up specks of dust that glint in the sunlight coming in from the windows. Just like the studs on Bear's wide new collar glint. John is still annoyed, but he has to admit that the collar is very nice. It's very Shaw, at least.

"Where'd she hide your things?" John wonders, and Bear's ears perk up. He plows past John towards the end of the row, where a massive oak apothecary cabinet rests heaped in dust and sunlight. The upper leftmost drawer handle has visibly less dust. John opens the drawer.

Bear's old collar is there, on top of a pile of keys, keyrings, and flat tags and labels, not all of them intended for dog collars. John sifts through them; they look like luggage tags, round and square, brass and gold, some blank, some engraved with names he doesn't recognize.

The collar itself jingles when John picks it up. He's never really looked at it very closely; when he brings Bear with him places the collar is off, and Finch is the one who walks the dog, even when they go together. There's three tags, a round one reading simply 'Bear' and another with one of Finch's multifarious phone numbers (presumably. John doesn't recognize that either), and a die-cut tag in the shape of a bone with the assurance that Bear has had all his shots. John slides them on the ring along the leather hoop, idly, and finally slides the ring off the end of the collar, leaving it bare except for the brass buckle. The leather itself is nice; expensive, handstitched and evenly stained, not that John expected anything less. The thing probably cost as much as his whole outfit. He brushes a stray Bear hair off the smooth interior surface, and his thumb skips over a cool metal plate.

John frowns. Twists the collar to see, holds it up to the light.

It's one of those luggage-tag looking things, only stapled into the leather. The engraving is a thin cursive font; elegant, but not pompous or flowery. Even in the light it's small, and John has to squint to see. It reads: Belonging to Harold R. Wren.

John feels his mouth quirk up. 'Belonging to'. Not 'Property of'. It was the kind of distinction that Harold was always concerned with. Of course he'd have something engraved custom rather than put his name, even a false one, to a statement he didn't believe. Bear wasn't anyone's property. But he _belonged_ somewhere. He belonged _to_ someone.

Bear noses at John's pants, wanting attention. John reaches down with his free hand to toy with his ears, gives him a scratch behind the left one that sends Bear's muscular tail to wagging again. It thumps against the apothecary cabinet, which resonates hollowly. Bear doesn't seem to mind.

"Wanna go for a walk?" John asks, and for no reason other than that the sun is warm on his face and the library feels even more like a sacred place full of hidden treasures than usual, he tucks the collar into his suit pocket.

Bear's tongue lolls excitedly in his toothy mouth.

"Where's Finch?" John coaxes, eyebrows raised. "Go get him."

Bear skitters along the hardwood towards Harold's office at a breakneck pace, sliding and scrambling as he rounds the corner. A moment later, John hears a loud thump, and Harold's muffled 'oh dear, Bear, what has gotten into you--'

John smirks. Time for Finch to take a break, anyway. The man works too hard.

* * *

 

  
Harold works so hard, John concedes later, because there is always work to be done.

"And there is always work to be done, Mr. Reese," Finch lectures, stripping off yet another one of John's ruined shirts "because the world is filled with dangerous and broken people. Hold that, please." He balls the shirt up into a wad and presses it to John's side. John obediently takes over, and Harold vanishes behind his back to get one of their many first aid kits, although not quickly enough that John doesn't see how pale he is.

"I can deal with this," John reminds him, knowing from experience that it won't do him any good but needing to say it anyway "I know you don't like blood." He's not going to try and convince Harold that he's fine; the wound clearly needs stitches, but John really could take care of it on his own. He has many, many times before. "Just leave the--"

"Oh, do shut up, Mr. Reese." Harold practically slams the Sterilite container on the table, and John shuts up, smiling a little despite himself. He's worked for Finch for over two years, and still has yet to hear Finch curse. "Lie down near the edge of the table if you would. I need to wash this out."

John lies down, and finds himself staring at the library's elaborately coffered ceiling as room temperature water sloshes over the gash in his side. He can hear the runoff trickling onto the floor. "I'll clean that up."

Finch just takes what sounds like a fortifying breath, and snaps on a pair of gloves. "Sterile needle holder and forceps," he mumbles, clearly to himself. "Simple interrupted stitch, square knot--"

"Harold," John rasps, doing his best not to move "I'll clean it up."

Harold stares down at him with a pale, sweaty face and wide eyes. He's down to a pink dress shirt and plum waistcoat, with his sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Between the white rubber gloves, the needle holder, and the curl of surgical thread, he looks like an 18th century tailor turned serial killer. "Please don't talk," he says, finally, and ducks down to work.

It hurts. John breathes slowly and evenly, counting the coffers in the ceiling for lack of anything better to do. Harold's hands are quick and precise, _in through in out knot clip tug_. By the third stitch, though, John can hear Finch's breath coming short and shallow. Not good.

"You can take a break," he rasps, craning his head up to watch his determined employer. Harold is still disturbingly pale. John's a little surprised he hasn't fainted, yet. "I'll finish it. Go sit down."

"Your hands are dirty," Finch snaps, and tugs tight his third knot. He's about halfway down the length of the gash.

"All right," John says, because that's reasonable, but he's still worried that Harold is about to topple over any minute now, and he doesn't think there are any smelling salts in the first aid kit. "Do you think there's a way for the machine to anticipate crimes with shorter premeditation windows?" Distraction, that ought to work.

"Such as this stabbing, for instance?" Finch purses his lips. "No. The only thing that would have prevented this would be your not feeling the need to intervene in muggings, which--" and was it John's imagination, that Harold pulled that fourth stitch a little tighter than the others? "By the way, would not have escalated to violence had you not involved yourself." Yeah, that was definitely more force than earlier; John feels the gloved fingers tie off the fourth stitch, hears the shears snip.

"You're angry with me," John realizes. "Why?"

"I am angry with myself, Mr. Reese. We both know you would not have been injured had I not been in the immediate vicinity."

And Finch had followed Reese into said immediate vicinity. Because he felt just as obligated to intervene as John did. John smiles ruefully. "Maybe." He was still nursing some cracked ribs from Shaw taking that sedan over a traffic median at 50 mph, and he was moving a little slower than usual. He had taken the hit, because he needed to disarm the boys as quickly as possible. It was a calculated, tactical sacrifice given his strategic priorities: minimal damage, subdue immediately, cover Finch. He made those choices every time he fought, so fast he hardly thought about them. But they were _his_ choices. "Was just doing my job, Finch."

"Your job is not to give your life for the wallets of New York," Harold says, rather primly. "For one thing, there are too many of them, and only one of you."

"Wallets _and_ watches," John corrects, finally feeling the sixth stitch poke through his skin "Who watches the watchbands, Finch?"

Harold furrows his brow as he stares down at John, his face a mix of concern and shock. "That was truly appalling, even for you," he says, and ties off the final stitch. "Did you hit your head?"

John smiles. Finch is back to a healthy pink, although still sweaty and wide-eyed. "No." He levers himself up on his palms, making sure not to curve his spine any. The stitches are neat, almost inhumanly even. But of course Finch is good with his hands. He spends hours upon hours a day honing his fine motor skills at a keyboard. "Not today, at least."

Finch hobbles over to the trash can to strip off his gloves. "I'll have to dispose of all this, and you'll want to watch that for infection--"

John slides down off the table. "I've got it. Go sit down before you fall down, Finch."

Harold lets out a mighty sigh, and finally sinks into the stuffed chair that John spends most mornings in. "It's been suggested that nausea and light headedness at the sight of blood is actually an ancient survival adaptation," he says, undoing the top button of his shirt and loosening his bowtie. His neck is sweaty, too. John spies dark patches under his arms. Poor Harold. "One might faint on a battlefield and be mistaken for dead when the victorious army returned to kill or imprison survivors."

Or when your own side returned to kill those who were no longer of use to it, John thinks. It strikes him as just as likely. He ties the garbage bag off and leans into the old janitorial closet. "You're an evolutionary wonder, Finch," he says, teasingly, wheeling out a mop and bucket "A man out of time."

Harold smiles at him, a little crookedly. "It often feels like it," he says. "Thank you, Mr. Reese."

John shrugs. "It's my mess."

Harold's smile widens incrementally. "I didn't mean for cleaning up."

"I know," John says, and whistles while he works.

* * *

  
John doesn't remember the collar until later, when he's home and hanging up the suit and it's too heavy on one side. 

He lays it on his bedside table, out of the way. It looks nice there, a belonging. There's not much at all in his apartment aside from furniture and weaponry, most of which is hidden from view. The dog collar is a place to start, he figures. Makes it homey. Reminds him where he belongs. To _who_ he--

John frowns. He took some painkillers from Shaw's stash to help sleep, and they've got to be kicking in. He feels weird and fuzzy, and when he lies down on his back and gingerly tugs a blanket over himself he drops off nearly immediately.

* * *

  
Whatever is in those pills, and John's certain he doesn't want to know, they work. He wakes up eleven hours later with his eyes gummed shut feeling like he's been asleep for years. He hasn't even shifted position from where he lay down and the only indication that time has passed at all is the clock and his unusually vigorous case of morning wood, the reason for which becomes clearer once snatches of his dream come back. 

It's just bits and pieces at first: the library, but odd, with a huge secret room in the stacks done up in burgundy and dark wood, dimly lit and smoky. There are couches and pillows, thick rugs and a massive four-poster bed with drapes, on which Bear is sleeping. John is sitting at the foot of one of the couches, looking out at the rest of the library, the library he knows.

Finch is on the couch, sitting properly. He's fully dressed, shoes and suit and watch chain. John, in contrast, is naked. Finch's gloved fingers comb through his hair, over and over, smooth down the nape of his neck. It's peaceful and safe. John rests his cheek on Finch's knee and breathes. He smells like shoe polish and flowery tea.

" _Af liggen_ ," Harold says, and John slips immediately down onto the carpet, sprawling onto his stomach, laying his cheek onto Finch's custom Venetian dress shoes. " _Braaf_."

John mouths along the cuff of the left shoe, nose brushing over Harold's dress pants and bumping against the sharp knob of his ankle. Then down the quarter, over a ridge of stitching to the vamp, smooth, sweet leather. His lips tremble as he kisses up the lacing, over the tongue, huffing warm breath through the thin fabric of Harold's sock--

He grinds shamelessly into the carpet, back arching.

" _Pfui_ ," Finch snaps, and lifts his toe, tilting John's head up by the chin. Harold stares down at him, face flushed and sweaty, smiling that same crooked smile he wore in the real library.

After that, the dream disintegrates again. John retrieves a few images, sensations-- Harold petting his hair with both hands as John sucks him off fervently, Harold soft and hot and angular against John on that giant bed (and whither Bear? Slunk off to the stacks, possibly. Dream logic). The worst of it (or the best of it, John guessed, depending on your perspective) came back to him while he was brushing his teeth, and he froze with his toothbrush still in his mouth as he remembered, with that bizarre but entirely convincing dreamlike detail, Harold fucking him into the mattress with a force and flexibility that John wasn't sure even he himself was capable of.

"No wonder," he says to his boner, and spits into the sink.

Time to take care of that, then. John usually doesn't bother to spend much time with this. It's a matter of routine physical upkeep, like eating or any other kind of bodily conditioning. If he's ever interested in a more sensual experience, which is rarely, he can find the real thing easily enough.

But he's on a strictly enforced day off ("Go home, Mr. Reese. Miss Shaw is more than capable of handling any number that comes up.") and he's already got a wealth of material to work with, so John figures he might as well take a long shower and enjoy himself.

Besides, it's Harold's fault, and Harold pays his water bill.

What would Harold be like in bed? John's thought about it before, of course; when he learned about Grace, for one, and _especially_ after he learned about Nathan. Before that he'd operated under the assumption that Finch was asexual, or so profoundly disinterested as to be effectively so. It was, in retrospect, a stupid and ignorant assumption, based partly on the widely accepted social fiction that disabled people were sexless and partly on John's initial impression of Finch as a reclusive eccentric with no social skills or ability to care for other people. It turned out, of course, that Finch's problem was that he cared too _much_ about other people, or that he cared about too _many_ people, all seven billion of them, as far as John could tell. And he was profoundly interested, in a good many things, and profoundly _interesting_ , at least to John.

So John had thought about it before, and come to the conclusion that Finch was either a sweet vanilla softy who thought of sex as 'making love', or a highly organized, controlling dominant with little mercy and very nice clothes.

Apparently John's subconscious was making known which option it preferred.

Although, John thinks, stroking himself under the pounding spray with a soap-slick hand, he wouldn't mind either, really. Or both. Harold was a control freak, but he was also an aesthete. A sensualist. It was the only explanation for the clothes, and the reverent look on Finch's face at the first sip of a cup of properly made tea. Harold was probably the type to undress a lover slowly, and kiss every inch of their skin. He probably fucked like he did everything else, with creativity and attention to detail, but with his mind always on the higher purpose, the ultimate good. Finch would make pleasuring his lover a long term project, broad in scope but perfectly executed at every point.

Perfectly executed. John imagines Finch whispering instructions in his ear as they fuck, coordinating, choreographing; "Please remove your undergarments, Mr. Reese", and "suck me, Mr. Reese", and "just relax, John, well done". He imagines riding Harold, straddling him and sinking down onto the girth of him, taking him inside as Harold's thin hands clutch at his hips, guide him, urge him up and down. Imagines Harold praising him; "Yes, John, you're doing so well, you feel so good," and it's the thought of Harold holding him afterwards that tips him over the edge. The thought of Harold weaving their limbs together and stroking John's hair, pressing his soft belly and narrow chest into the curve of John's body, dropping tired kisses along John's neck and chin and collar with slack lips.

John spends a luxurious total of eighteen minutes in the shower and goes to make himself pancakes and sausage for breakfast, because it's Harold's fault, and Harold pays for his groceries.

* * *

 

What feels like the longest car ride of John Reese's life only turns out to be one hour and forty seven minutes, but Shaw and Fusco together are always a headachey brew, and the blogger they just saved-slash-apprehended is only making things worse.

"Listen kid," Fusco's saying, wearing his Dad face. It's pretty much his regular face, only crinklier "I understand why you're angry. But you can't fight city hall."

"Not with that attitude you can't." Shaw, of course, is having a wonderful time. John can tell. Her voice changes tempo just the tiniest bit when she's delighted. "Don't listen to Lionel, Maisie, he's a misogynist."

"What, so you're into feminism now?" Fusco scoffs.

"Nah," Shaw admits. "I hate everyone equally. Except for you, Lionel. I hate you extra."

"You weirdos sure know how to make a guy feel special," Fusco says, as if John is somehow involved in this conversation instead of slumped over in the backseat with a seat belt digging into his neck and his abdomen feeling like he swallowed glass.

"Is your friend okay?" Maisie92 asks, craning her little head back to stare at him. John gives her a weak smile in return. She really is a nice kid. Mostly.

"He's just being a baby, he's fine," Shaw says. "So, city hall. As in the structure, or certain elected officials? Because that's gonna change my grocery list."

"He fell off a building," Lionel reminds her.

"It was _two stories_."

"Onto a _car_."

"So, less than two stories. Be quiet, Lionel, the women are talking." Shaw leans across the gear shift towards their number, conspiratorially. "They always do that. Try to talk over you."

Fusco snorts.

"That," Shaw announces, with sadistic glee "was a micro-aggression."

John musters the strength to reach up and tap his earwig. "Help," he mumbles.

There's no immediate response, and John sits upright in a rush, despite his bruised stomach. "Harold? Shaw, have you heard from--"

"Reese," Shaw says, at the same moment as the earpiece crackles and Harold's voice comes through, and John sinks back down in relief "has it ever occurred to you that he might just be in the bathroom?"

"Mr. Reese?" Finch repeats, now sounding quite worried himself, and John remembers that oops, this was why he was maintaining radio silence, "are you injured?"

"No," John lies.

" _John_."

"Maybe a little."

"How bad is it?" John can hear the desk chair rolling, drawers being pulled open. "Should I call Dr. Tillman--"

"No, I'm fine."

In the rear view mirror, Shaw's blank gaze is judging him, and clearly finding him lacking.

"I'm just. Well, I'm here with Maisie," John adlibs, rather slyly if he says so himself, especially with a concussion. "And I thought you might like to talk with her."

"Oh my god," Shaw grumbles.

"Ah. I see," Harold says, with a distinct tone of 'we are not done here'. Nevertheless, John's phone rings in his pocket, and he drops it into his lap, ramping the speaker up with his thumb. "Hello, Miss Lawrence. My name is Harold. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Hi?" Maisie asks, staring back at John.

"Miss Lawrence," Harold continues, and clears his throat. "I understand that you feel helpless. And unheard by the people who make the rules in our society. But propaganda of the deed will only land you in prison, and even more unable to act against the injustices of the world. If you'll permit me to say so, you would be better served by remaining in school, and running for office yourself. Then _you_ can make the rules."

"Wow," Shaw says. "Very inspirational."

"I was not aiming to inspire Miss Lawrence, merely to suggest a logical course of action. Such an _intelligent_ woman," he stresses the adjective, "will no doubt appreciate the importance of following reason over emotion."

"Yeah, kid." Fusco says "You're right to be mad, but violence isn't the answer."

Shaw opens her mouth, and John manages to kick the back of her seat, if rather weakly.

"Whatever." Maisie crosses her arms over her chest, but she's looking down at her knees. That's teenager for 'you have a point'.

"Misogynists, the lot of them," Shaw declares, and finally, finally pulls their stolen sedan up to the curb in front of St. Agnes Catholic School. "Here we are."

"Detective," Harold says, "If you could please accompany our young revolutionary back to class. I've made sure that she won't be penalized for today's absence."

"Fuck that," Shaw says, and sets the car in park just long enough to reach for her wallet and pull out a stack of suspiciously crisp twenties (and to John's dismay, a strip of condoms). "It's Friday. Go hog wild. Buy yourself a milkshake."

Maisie takes the proffered cash, and stares confusedly at the condoms. "I'm asexual," she says.

Shaw grins toothily. "I know. Leave 'em in the Bible Study classroom and report back. You got my number."

Maisie giggles. John hangs up on Harold's sputtering and exchanges a look with Fusco as the large man rolls himself out of the back seat and onto the curb.

"Where to?" Shaw asks, when they're back in the flow of traffic. "I'm hungry."

"Library," John mumbles.

"You sure?" She shrugs. "What am I saying. Of course you're sure. You haven't had Finch pat you on the head for over an hour, you're practically wasting away."

John eyes her in the rear view, trying to communicate 'I am unbothered by your specious and wrong speculation'. That he does feel parched for Harold's company is none of her business. It has been significantly more than an hour, he's allowed.

"It's not healthy, you know," Shaw says. "That kind of co-dependence with your handler. You're compromised." She takes a turn too sharply, jarring John against the door. "I don't know why I agree to work with you two. I'd be safer doing contract work."

"Admit it. You like us." John can't help but smile at her snort. "And you think safe is boring."

Shaw huffs, and guns it over a solid yellow line to pass the pickup in front of them which is moving at a meager eight mph over the speed limit. "Seriously, though, are you hemorrhaging?"

John shrugs. He doesn't think so. Won't know until he gets a chance to piss.

"Cool. We're stopping for burgers, then."

Armed with John's wallet, Shaw makes a valiant attempt to obtain the whole contents of a Manhattanville Shake Shack, and then drops him off a block from the Library with a lone greasy paper bag ("That's for Bear. You can have his pickle.")

"You didn't actually give her your number?" John asks, leaning a bit too heavily on the roof of the sedan. He doesn't think Shaw even _has_ a proper number. She hates cell phones.

"Tell Finch he owes me a hundred forty bucks and six Durex," Shaw says, around a mouthful of fries, and speeds off down the street, just barely missing John's toes.

Bear meets John on the stairway, snuffling hopefully at the bag. Finch isn't far behind, but he looks considerably less excited.

"I'm fine," John says preemptively, extracting the patty from the bun and tossing it at an angle, like a Frisbee. Bear catches it midair, then vanishes under Finch's desk to enjoy his lunch in peace.

"Detective Fusco tells me you jumped off of a building," Finch snaps "And since I am fairly confident that you have not developed the faculty of flight since we parted this morning--"

"A small building," John tries, with his very best 'who, me?' smile. "Not even two stories."

Harold does not seem impressed with this information. "Was that really necessary?"

John shrugs. Landing on top of Jimmy Dawson/Lulzsec999's car before he had a chance to make a getaway was certainly faster than chasing him across town via traffic cam, and after the morning John had had he was in a hurry. So probably not necessary, but definitely preferable.

And, if John was honest, there had been a certain satisfaction in scaring the ever-loving shit out of a singularly unpleasant person by dropping down onto him from above. In addition to harassing minors for their political views, Dawson liked to spend his online time browsing men's rights rant blogs, revenge porn, and holocaust denial websites. Although John seriously doubted that Dawson's bid for public office on his 'All Women are Deceitful Bitches' platform would bear fruit, it was hard to be angry with Maisie for wanting to off him.

"Well," John says, finally, glancing past Harold at the main monitor, where Dawson's campaigning account is flashing a big red zero at the bottom. "You did say I wasn't allowed to maim him. What happened to 'defending the democratic process even when it disappoints us', Finch?"

Harold has the decency to blush. "It's hardly my fault that Dawson chooses to conduct his business via bitcoin, a _notoriously_ _volatile_ crypto-currency vulnerable to malware and data loss."

John raises his eyebrows.

"It's not even real money," Finch insists. "Stop changing the subject."

"I'm all right, Harold." John repeats, softer now. "Minor concussion at most."

"Then you need to lie down and rest," Finch snaps, and gestures jerkily at the camp bed set up between R 12 and RB 231.2. It's been there for the last several months, since Shaw started working with them more regularly. She keeps odd hours, and it's not unusual for John to come in mornings and find her splayed out on the mattress, awkwardly spooning Bear.

("I think it's a good sign," Harold had confided once, over coffee and a dossier hidden inside that day's copy of The Post. "It shows she has the capacity to connect emotionally, even if it's only with an animal."

John had just shrugged. He's never bought the whole 'sociopath' thing. There was something 'off' about Shaw, sure, but it wasn't qualitatively different than whatever was 'off' about John, or Hersch, or any given veteran, especially one with a background in wetwork. To survive certain things meant cutting off a part of yourself, and for whatever reason, by whatever necessity-- violence, loss, disaster-- Shaw had made the incision early. John has seen the same numbness in child soldiers, in domestic violence victims, in earthquake survivors, and in the mirror. Under the particularity, there is a terrible sameness.

That's not something he expects Harold to understand, though-- and John will die a happy man if Harold never has to understand that kind of self-inflicted trauma on anything other than an intellectual level.)

John doesn't realize how exhausted he is until he lies down, mostly to placate Finch, who looks like he is working himself up into a truly dangerous snit. He nuzzles into the pillow, shifting to find a position that doesn't press on his bruises.

"At least remove your shoes," Finch grumbles, and before John can respond there are warm hands gripping his ankles, sliding them off.

"Hmm," John hums, and drops into a shallow doze that Harold interrupts every half hour with brisk questions clearly designed to test his neurological function-- who is the secretary of state (Clinton), what year did John enlist (that's classified), what did he have for breakfast this morning (granola bar).

"And as Bear has already enjoyed your lunch," he hears Finch mutter over the clacking of keys, "I can only assume your blood sugar is dipping."

"Mmm," John agrees, not particularly hungry, but another half hour passes and his next question (What is thirty-three minus seventeen, Mr. Reese?) is accompanied by a foil-wrapped gyro from the food truck at the end of the block and a chilled bottle of water. He sits up slowly and eats, watching Harold through narrowed eyes. Finch has dimmed the lights in the stacks, presumably for John's benefit, and he looks eerie encased in the blue glow from his various monitors.

John thinks of Dumont the Tower Guardian, and then of Finch in a radiant digital miter and maniple, and smiles.

"Finch," he asks, prompting only a fractional pause in the typing, "When did Tron come out?"

"1982," Finch says, with a sigh. "Thus instilling wildly incorrect ideas about artificial intelligence in an entire generation of Americans."

John grins. "I bet you liked it. Don't lie."

Finch sniffs. "Unlike yourself, Mr. Reese, I was already an adult in the early nineteen eighties. Outside the target audience for Disney films."

"You saw it in the theater, didn't you?" John wheedles, already enjoying his mental image of MIT-student Harold with his hands in a giant tub of popcorn, wincing and grumbling at every misuse of a computing term. It's pretty much how he acts in the theater now, but John can't get Finch to voice his annoyance at historical anachronisms and bad science while the reels are going-- that's what walks back to the library are for, Harold gesticulating with frustration while Bear gazes up at him with concern and John tries to hide his smile in the shadow of their umbrella. He wishes he could have known that younger, less buttoned-up Harold, the Harold who wasn't so protected by secrecy and obvious displays of wealth and competence. The Harold whose big brain and smart mouth got him into trouble. John suspects that Finch in college was actually quite fun.

"Twice," Finch admits. "If you're feeling better, perhaps we ought to call it a day."

That's a dismissal if John's ever heard one, but when he staggers upright and pulls his shoes back on, trying not to mope too obviously, Harold is pulling his hat and coat off the rack. Bear, sensing movement, scrambles for his leash.

It's raining lightly when they exit the library, just a faint misting that fogs Harold's glasses a bit, dampens the brim of his hat.

They walk along the Greenway for a good mile and a half, slowly, gazing out at the Hudson. When they pass what John has come to think of as 'their bench' (it's maudlin and sentimental, but no one ever has to know but him), Harold swivels his upper body towards John by a scant few degrees and says, without altering his stride, "You enlisted with the army in January of 1993 at the age of twenty-two, at the behest of a district court judge. Interestingly, this was already a rare occurrence in the nineties; that branch of the service no longer accepts recruits with charges pending."

John can barely remember being that young-- at this point, Harold probably knows more about John's life before the service than he does himself. But it's the first time he's heard Harold outright admit to digging so deep into his past; Harold would need John's real name, for that.

"Even then you were exceptional," Finch says mildly, like it's nothing. "You scored highly on all measures of physical and mental aptitude, especially those areas which indicate capacity for language learning."

"I was just a grunt," John says.

"Perhaps. But it didn't take them very long at all, did it, to funnel you into the Combat Applications Group."

"I was good at following orders."

"Yes." Harold does stop, then, one hand hovering over Reese's elbow. Bear whuffs with concern and sits down, ears perked and alert for any movement. "Because you believed in the institutions giving them."

"That doesn't make it right."

Harold smiles, crooked. He's looking at John, but also elsewhere, past him in space and, John suspects, time. "No. It doesn't." Then his gaze sharpens, re-aligns with John's. "Oh, I have something for you."

John stares in silence as Harold reaches into his coat pocket and comes up with Logan Pierce's two million dollar watch, clean and whole. "I had this repaired for you. Our friend Mr. Mitchell was grateful for the work."

"Oh," John says, vaguely disappointed and not entirely sure why. "That's--"

"I realized that you might have mistaken my reasons for breaking it," Harold continues. "It was certainly not my intention to suggest that you cannot have friends or relationships outside of work." He grins, a bit sheepishly. "Although I admit that Mr. Pierce does not strike me as an ideal romantic partner, it's not really my business. It's not as if I _own_ you."

"Oh," John says again, and forces himself to reach for the watch, forces himself to speak. "Thank you."

"Think nothing of it," Finch says, and turns on his heel. Bear practically leaps upright, and then they're off down the path, leaving John alone in front of their bench in the quickening rain, staring at the back of the timepiece. He'd noticed it when Pierce gave him the thing, but hadn't had the chance to read it before Harold was snatching it out of his hand.

' _My one of a kind -- L.P_.,' it says, in obnoxiously modern sans serif type.

John swallows the burgeoning lump in his throat. Then he reels his arm back, and chucks the watch into the river.

It's supposed to be waterproof, anyhow.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is self-inflicted choking in this chapter, which is a bad idea and (like most things Reese does) you should never try it at home.

Finch doesn't call the next morning, which means there's no new numbers. Normally John would go in anyway, but he wakes up in an inordinately bad mood and immediately resolves not to subject Harold to it unless absolutely necessary. John's bad moods aren't Harold's responsibility, after all; it's not like Finch _owns_ him.

It is with this thought that John lies in bed, unmoving, for a solid seven minutes, contemplating the emergency bottle of Wild Turkey in his toilet tank, and then he forces himself up and goes for a run, instead. It's a six mile loop around Central Park; John does it three times, and still the phone doesn't ring.

The problem with running in a flat area like Manhattan is that it's not strenuous enough activity to keep John from thinking, and his idle brain is rehashing yesterday's conversation with all the attention to detail he usually reserves for cleaning weapons, reading materials science textbooks, and killing people. 

Where did he go wrong? What did he say, or not say, that made Finch give him back that watch? They saved Lou Mitchell over two months ago. It doesn't take two months to repair a watch, even a two million dollar watch that tells time to the nano-second. Finch has been sitting on it for a while.

Finch paid to have the thing repaired-- why not pay to have the inscription sanded off? And why the implication about Pierce, as if John was even remotely interested-- as if John would ever wear something that marked him as property like that, like an _object_. Like he was one of Pierce's cars, or the single suit, or the best _pelmeni_ in the world--

John pauses on the way home to buy a bottle of water from a street vendor, pays in crumpled ones from his vest pocket. The water is ice cold, and it makes his teeth hurt. He swallows more, chasing the feeling; anything to make his chest feel less tight in comparison.

Why yesterday, unless John had done something wrong. Failed some test. Why any of it, unless Finch knew that John had _wanted_ him to be jealous. Unless Finch wanted to disabuse John of the notion, in the clearest terms possible, that Harold would ever care that much about John wearing another man's initials against his wrist.

Because God, does John want him to care. He's wanted that for a long time, and he's been happily going about his business because even Harold's scraps are more than he deserves, and frankly John has been under the impression that, if Harold was interested, they would get there eventually. 

If Harold was interested. That was something he'd never had any real reason to doubt. No real reason to believe it, either; just smiles, and quiet mornings, and long looks over coffee cups, and the way Finch's voice pitched upward when John teased him, embarrassed but pleased. Just everything, and nothing.

John crumples the empty water bottle into a disc and takes the stairs to his loft two at a time. He leaves the phone on the sink counter while he showers, and still it doesn't ring, and he lies down on the bed Harold bought for him, surrounded by the calculatedly uninspired furniture Harold selected, and the phone doesn't ring. His closet is stocked with suits Harold altered for him, and his body is dotted with scars that Harold's crusade has earned him. Harold pays for his electricity, and his groceries, and his ammunition. Harold has given him objects, and places, and orders, and a purpose. Harold has given John his life back, a life and near everything in it, not on loan but as a gift. 

Finch doesn't want John to wear Logan Pierce's things, John realizes. Not really. It would break pattern, and while Harold's motives are often arcane, he's always _consistent_.

So the watch was something else-- a punishment, or maybe a test. Maybe even-- and John only allows himself the thought for the sake of completeness, truly-- an invitation.

He swallows, suddenly too aware of the empty air of the apartment on his damp skin, the chill of evaporating water coaxing his nipples to hard points. It's much too easy to imagine Harold on top of him, twisting and scratching at John's bare chest, hunting for sensitive areas with curiosity, attentiveness, even (John gasps) a hint of cruelty.

John darts a glance at the phone, still stubbornly silent on his bedside table. The curve of the collar is reflected in the dark screen, and he's grabbing for it without thinking, settling the cool leather and the colder plate engraving around his neck. He slips the tongue through the buckle and pulls, and pulls, imagining that it's Harold's hand on the leather, cinching it tight around John's throat. Imagines Harold's voice in his ear, calmly explaining that he knows everything about John, everything John needs, including how much air. Explaining how completely and utterly John is _owned_.

John digs his shoulder blades and heels into the bed, arching up under an imaginary tension. His face feels heavy and hot, and he pulls until his vision frays at the edges and his skin tingles from his temples down the full length of his body, thrumming. His heart beats loudly in his ears as he feels the nameplate at his nape digging in, imagines that he can feel the inscription imprinting on his skin, leaving a mark as clear as a library stamp, as a brand. He wants _Belonging to Harold R. Wren_ etched as deep into him as Finch is, something external to show for how Harold found John and carefully cracked him open, walked in, and set up shop; how Harold was everywhere now, in John's ear, his brain, his heart--

His heart pounds, frantic, certain of danger and John lets the leather tongue slip from his fingers with some reluctance. He gulps air and shudders as his body is flooded with oxygen, head spinning, the ceiling tilting. The orgasm is unimportant in comparison, a mere wet jolt between his legs while John's mind is racing with thoughts and images, remembered sensations of Finch's voice in his ear calling him back from dark places, his hands at John's throat adjusting the knot of his tie.

Harold doesn't want John to wear Logan Pierce's things, John thinks, splayed panting on the sheets. Maybe John didn't do anything wrong at all. Maybe the watch was just Finch being Finch, throwing a wrench in the gears to see what the system would spit out. And that curious quality, even though it hurt John sometimes, kept him off balance and uncertain, even that was just one more part of Harold Finch to adore.

* * *

 

The next morning, John makes sure to drag a lint roller over his nicest everyday suit jacket (the slimmer cut, in a slightly darker shade of black than the rest of them), flosses for twice as long as he usually does, and clips his fingernails. He stops by Balthazar for croissants and _pain brioche_ and then takes an entirely inefficient detour North to Washington Square Park for an extra large Sencha green tea in the ideal paper cup (with 98% recycled cardboard sleeve). A brisk walk gets him to the library before the tea cools and the bell tower down the block chimes 7:00 am. 

Shaw meets him on the steps, yawning hugely. She appears to have slept in yesterday's clothes, although John thinks the eyeliner is new. Bear weaves between her legs excitedly, tail a mere sable blur. The leash is dragging behind him, utterly ignored.

Shaw pauses mid-stretch to stare at John, eyes scanning from the freshly shone shoes past the paper bag to the carefully gelled hair. 

"You in the doghouse?" she asks, managing to sound both curious and disinterested at the same time "What's with the suck-up routine?"

"Tactical approach," John explains, and brushes past her, lifting the bag of pastries up above her reach when she darts a hand out to snatch at it. Then he side-steps to avoid the low kick she aims at his shin. "Get your own breakfast."

Bear whines. Behind him, Shaw makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like a blown raspberry. 

Finch is at his desk as usual, keyboard clattering away. A sound file jumps and waves on his main monitor in a variety of colored segments; isolating environmental noises from an audio recording, probably. If John hadn't seen Shaw (who refused to kip in the library accompanied by anyone but the dog) in all her tousled glory, he would suspect Harold of sleeping in his office chair. It wouldn't be the first time. 

Finch doesn't turn to greet him, but when John sets the cup and bag down next to his elbow he makes a noise of acknowledgement. John is about to pull back and go find something impressive-looking to read in the easy chair (tactical approach) when Finch reaches out and grabs John's wrist lightly, just below his stiff, starched shirt cuff. His hand is a strong but gentle circle of thumb and forefingers; John drinks the warmth of it in greedily, lets Harold lift his arm up and coax the sleeve up an inch. 

"Where is your watch, Mr. Reese?" Finch asks, eyebrows raised. He doesn't sound reproachful, merely curious.

"Not sure," John admits, making no attempt to extract himself "Somewhere in the Hudson, I think." 

Harold does not seem to have any intention of releasing him, but he doesn't say anything. The eyebrows stay up. John waits, not ready to offer any further information until he's seen how his initially sally was recieved. 

"Am I to presume," Finch says, slowly, "that you are not eager to pursue further assignations with Mr. Pierce?"

"We didn't 'assignate' in the first place," John says, enjoying how Harold's eye twitches just slightly at the neologism "as you well know."

"It was never my intention to deprive you of a social life, Mr. Reese--" Harold's throat jumps against his collar, and his eyes dart from John's eyes to just past him, a strategic retreat. Finch is nervous, but he still hasn't let go.

"I don't need a relationship outside of work," John says, catching his gaze and holding it, suddenly certain that his next step is well worth the risk. He makes a small spreading gesture with his captured hand, indicating with his fingers the desk, the glass board, the library, but meaning really the chair, the man sitting in it. "Everything I want is right here."

If John didn't know Finch so well, and if they weren't so close that John can smell Harold's soap under the fresh sweetness of the _brioche_ , he would have missed it-- Harold's ears going just slightly pink at the tips. It's all John can do to contain his grin, and some of it must slip out anyway, because Finch swallows quickly. It's much too delightful that after three years, John can still get Harold so flustered; he looks like a startled grouse with its neck feathers ruffling out. John resists the urge to reach out and set everything back into order.

"Well," Finch sniffs, after a tense moment, and lifts his hand very deliberately from John's wrist. "You'll be pleased to hear, then, that we have another number."

"Very," John agrees, and coaxes the paper bag toward him across the table, backing off for the moment. 

They discover over breakfast that Amelia Kordel of Greenpoint has been a model citizen since 1938, when she and her late husband Otis arrived at Ellis Island from Warsaw. 

"An uninterrupted seventy-four year membership to the New York Public Library," Finch says, with an air of disbelief, "and not a single overdue book. I can't imagine who would want to do this woman harm."

"Not a librarian," John agrees, still struggling to keep his giddiness to a minimum. "Landlord, maybe? Disgruntled neighbor?"

"Her credit score is impeccable," Harold muses, and swivels the chair a few degrees to face one of his smaller monitors "and her rent checks, made out to three different _generations_ of landlord, are always cashed within the first week of the month. I don't see any complaints filed with the NYPD either by her or about her."

"So it's decided," John teases, leaning over Harold's shoulder and not-quite-accidentally brushing his hand against Harold's side. "She's a highly organized serial killer planning on one last hurrah before her ninety-third birthday."

Harold casts a mildly disapproving look at him over the lenses of his glasses, but doesn't pull away. "Perhaps, if you are finished flirting, you might go pay her a visit and find out?" His hand settles lightly over John's, a brush of fingers to soothe the sting of the words. "We have work to do."

John doesn't find any evidence of foul play in Mrs. Kordel's apartment (aside from a massive stockpile of individually wrapped Andes Mints and Keebler Cheese and Peanut Butter Sandwich Crackers, which are either the threat to Amelia or the reason she's lived for so long). In her mailbox on the first floor, however, there is a sizable collection of threatening notes on a variety of mediums penned by a variety of hands-- napkins, printer paper, receipts, and a very tiny 'Move or Die' crammed onto the obverse of a chewing gum wrapper.

"Can we check the landlord again, Finch?" John murmurs, sifting through the complaints. The pile is truly a study in horrendous penmanship. The dim light in the entrance hall doesn't help.

"I don't think it's the landlord," Harold replies, over frantic clicking. "At least, not the residential kind. Could you head towards the Community Center on Lorimer Street, it's rather urgent. I'll explain on the way."

Apparently Amelia Kordel's fellow urban gardeners were tired of her hogging the central full-sun plot in the Brooklyn Community Garden and planting it full of Kohlrabi ("a member of the Cabbage family, Mr. Reese, although it more closely resembles a turnip") every season. John was uncertain why this was an offense worthy of death threats, but the five angry octogenarians at the Lorimer Annual Seed Swap were happy to educate him.

"Kohlrabi stunts tomato growth," a Mrs. Joan L. Waller (82) is shouting, over a dangerously pointy-looking cart of potted succulents "And tomatoes are indisputably the most popular crop for small-plot urban vegetable growers!"

"Everyone wants fresh tomatoes," agrees Dudley Carlson (87). "I think she does it to be contrary. Just because she's been around longer--"

"Maybe she just likes cabbage," John suggests, making sure to display his empty hands prominently as he eases towards Mr. Carlson. "Why don't you give me the--" he squints at it "whatever that is, and--"

"It's a god damn compost aerator!", Joan shouts "Don't listen to him, Dudley, he doesn't know anything about companion planting!"

"You can just use a shovel, Dudley," Amelia says from behind him, apparently unfazed. "There's no need for all these expensive what-cha-ma-call-its. Good dirt and some water makes miracles grow, that's what I always say."

"Some people have been on the waiting list for years," another elderly woman shouts, waving a seed packet above her head for emphasis. "And she just refuses to give up her plot, or to grow anything else!"

John takes hold of the long metal pole as gently as he can, avoiding the twin blades at the end. He really doesn't want to break anyone's wrist by accident. "I'm sure we can sort this out. What if there were more plots available?"

"Oh please, like the city would ever--"

"As it happens," John says softly, coaxing, "a personal friend has just purchased two vacant lots in Williamsburg and donated them to the Urban Gardener's League. They will be ready for planting by May."

The compost aerator drops to the floor, and John has to guide Amelia Kordel to the rear exit to avoid the stampede of orthopedic shoes towards the registration desk. He walks her back to her apartment, just to be safe, and although he declines the invitation to come up, she pretends not to hear him. 

"What's this?" Finch asks, when John slides a woven basket across his desk, brimming with fake plastic Easter grass. Bear, apparently returned into Harold's custody, catches a stray strand of it on his nose and sneezes wetly.

"Heirloom eggplant cultivar," John says, and rummages in the basket to come up with a handful of seed packets and a lone Andes Mint. "And some tomatoes. Which sounds better, Harold, Brandywine or Amish Paste?"

"Planning to take up gardening, Mr. Reese? I must warn you that while real estate costs in Williamsburg are very high, Chinatown will be considerably worse." 

"Regretting your purchase?" John wonders, shaking a seed packet by the corner until it rattles. "It's for a good cause. And no, I was going to get some hanging pots. The upside down ones." He grins widely. "Make use of those big windows you bought me."

Harold eyes him curiously. "To what end?"

"Marinara sauce," John says lightly, and drops the packet onto Harold's keyboard, just to be a pain. "Speaking of which. Dinner? I'll cook."

Bear leaps up immediately at the word 'dinner', too smart for his own good.

"I think I'll wait until these have matured," Harold says, flipping the packet over to read the planting information. "Which would be between sixty and eighty days."

Well, he walked right into that one. John kicks himself mentally. "Take out, then?"

"Sit down," Finch says, and John feels his knees unlock instantly, ready to obey, but Finch is getting up out of his chair and reaching for his coat. "Thai?"

Oh. That kind of sit down. "Schezuan," John counters. Sichuan Garden is open later than Finch's favorite Thai place, and the tables are smaller, the lighting dimmer. Tactical approach. "Beer's better."

Harold gives him a knowing look, but says nothing. On the walk to the restaurant, his gloved hand brushes John's once, twice, three times.

* * *

  
"Listen, Sulky McBrooder," Shaw says ten days later "Are you sick, or something?"

John looks up at her from where he's crouched, poking through a bin of hotel trash with a toothbrush for anything to indicate their number stayed the night.

"What?"

"Your face. It's going to get stuck like that."

John's smiling, he realizes. He's been doing that a lot, lately. And despite their recalcitrant number, he's had a very good morning: it's sunny, two of his tomato plants are already germinating, and Finch expressed a purely positive opinion about his homemade apple turnovers. "I'm just happy, Shaw. It's not a disease."

"That's vomit," Shaw says, and points, as if John doesn't know. "And you didn't even flip me for it. What is it, do you have a puke thing? Because that would be weird, even for you." She pauses. "Even for me, now that I think about it."

John extracts a long, slick blonde hair from the wet mass of ex-chicken dinner. Bingo. "Got her. Finch, Aubrey was definitely here last night."

"Well done, Mr. Reese," Finch says over the line, and Shaw rolls her eyes. "However, this does mean that the manager lied to us. I'd be interested to know why."

Shaw cracks her knuckles and whistles for Bear, who comes crawling out from under the bed where he was chasing dust bunnies. "I'll go have a chat with him."

"Please do try to aim for non-vital areas, Ms. Shaw," Harold says desperately.

"Her aim is fine, Harold," John says, moving to the bathroom to wash his hands in the cracked sink. 

"Yeah Harold, my aim is fine." Shaw holds the door open for the dog, and then lets it slam behind them, taking off across the parking lot to the main office. 

In the bathroom mirror (tarnished, in only slightly better condition than the sink), John is somewhat embarrassed to see that he is glowing. Even when he forces his mouth into a flat line, his eyes stay crinkled up. "Nothing else of hers here," he says, checking the medicine cabinet and finding it empty except for an old bar of green soap that has fused with the shelf. "I'm gonna go check on Shaw."

"Ah--" Harold says, and John hears the chair swivel. "Actually, Mr. Reese, if you could return to the Lower East Side, Mr. Billick's wireless signal has just reappeared at his office building on Grand Street."

"Wherever you want me," John says easily, already considering how quickly he can hotwire the Volvo parked outside, the distance to the bridge, possible traffic chokepoints. 

Shaw's comm crackles to life as she makes a gagging noise. Behind it, John hears the unmistakable thump of a two-hundred pound man hitting a wall at speed. "For god's sake, Harold, will you just screw him already and put me out of my misery?"

John tenses, but Harold doesn't so much as stutter. "While it's none of your business, Ms. Shaw, I do not put out on the second date. Now, if we could please save discussion of my sex life for another time. Preferably never."

Shaw just snorts. "Whatever. Manager doesn't know anything. Says Aubrey looked nervous and offered him twenty bucks to not say she'd been here if someone asked." Another thump. "Fucker demanded fifty."

Twenty-two minutes later, John is holding one Jacob Billick, Chief Marketing Officer, off the roof of a seventeen-story building by his wrists. His knuckles are bruised. John is thinking about Aubrey Mitchell with her black eye. Seventeen years old. Terrified. _Pregnant_.

 "Finch," John says, transferring his burden to one hand so that he can tap the earwig with the other. Billick's mouth gapes in disbelief and terror. "Give me a reason not to kill this guy."

"Mr. Billick has a family, John," Harold says. "A wife and two little girls."

John gives Billick his best dead-eyed stare. "That's not a point in his favor at the moment."

"John. We do not murder people."

"That's a reason," John admits. "Not sure how much I care right now, though."

"I know. Bring him up, please, Detective Fusco is on his way."

"Today's your lucky day," John whispers, and hauls Billick back onto the roof, making sure to jar him against the concrete rail as he does so. "You got Aubrey, Shaw?"

"Kinda," Shaw grumbles, over what sounds suspiciously like crying. "Next time, I'll take the sleazy cradle-snatcher and you can deal with the traumatized kid." 

There's a beep, a rustling noise, and then it's Carter's voice on the line, clear and unimpressed. "Is that you, John? Tell me you didn't kill anyone."

John nudges Billick in the ribs with the toe of his shoe, eliciting a yelp. "Not yet."

"I never thought I'd say this, but you have better bedside manner than your friend, here. Just call me next time, okay?"

"Sure, Carter," John agrees, and leaves Billick tied sideways by the wrists and ankles to the rail, slightly tighter than necessary. He can hear sirens down at street level. Time to go.

Harold gives him a concerned glance when he returns to the library, and John does his best to wipe the dark look from his face. Over the last half hour, his day has soured considerably.

"Even without a statutory rape and assault charge," Harold says carefully, "the tax fraud will put him away for a substantial amount of time."

John shrugs, dropping heavily into his stuffed chair. His hands are itching. He wishes he'd gotten a few more hits in, maybe let Billick land one on him so he had an excuse. A cushy white-collar prison stay was too good for someone like him, and Harold knew it.

"You're angry with me," Finch says, after a long moment. His tone does not betray his feelings towards this state of affairs.

"No," John says. 

"But you are angry."

"Yes."

"You're welcome to go home for the day."

John just shrugs again. He could go home, do push ups on the floor of his kitchen until he got tired. Go to the gym, beat the shit out of a bag. But he'd rather not. 

"In that case," Finch says, leaning down to get at one of the lower drawers in his desk and coming back up with a cardboard four-pack of compact florescent bulbs "the lights in Zoology are out. If you wouldn't mind."

John takes the package from Harold and goes to get a a ladder from the supply closet. On a whim, he changes into the spare pair of Carhartts and Tims he keeps in the back and stocks a bucket with cleaning supplies to take with him. He occupies himself for the next two hours with dusting, sweeping, and mopping all eighteen rows of the Science and Technology section, occasionally pausing to browse. Once his arms and back start to ache, he retires to Literature on the first floor, where the majority of his arsenal lives. 

He's just pulled out his bag of cleaning rods, oils, and brushes when Harold pokes his head out over the balcony. "There's more room up here, if you'd rather."

John blinks at him, trying to parse that sentence. "You hate it when I work up there."

"Bear isn't here," Harold says, as if that explains everything. "So long as you don't point the barrel at me--"

John brings his bag, his Beretta 92, and the Colt M4 Carbine, mostly out of curiosity and vague suspicion. Harold does stiffen up when John sets the rifle down on the floor, but after a few minutes of tense silence the keyboard clicks resume. 

John falls into the soothing ritual of field stripping, cleaning, and oiling with no small amount of relief. The routine maintenance of the carbine goes quickly, the take down mostly automated; really only the bolt buffer and the bolt stop need to be fully removed today. Although John uses the rifle often, and appreciates its versatility and accuracy, he doesn't much care for the M4. Firing it feels impersonal, mechanical, and it reminds him too much of spec ops, where he learned how to shoot indiscriminately and without thought. With high velocity rounds, the gun does all the work for him-- takes the kickback and the blame. 

He spends more time on the Beretta, breaking it down to bare components, twisting the bristly bore brush between his fingertips, losing himself in the texture and the smell. The pistol, unlike the rifle, is a part of him. An extension of his hand. He rebuilds it from useless shapes, hunks of steel and polymer, and he is responsible. The Beretta, and everything it does, belongs to him. 

The sun is setting outside by the time John finishes daubing oil onto the slide guides. He puts the spring back in and racks the slide back and forth to spread the fluid around. It clicks satisfying under his palm, and settles back into battery when he pulls the trigger. 

"You prefer that one," Harold notes from his desk, and John looks up to see him staring, hands resting on his lap with fingers woven together. Now that John thinks about it, the computer hasn't made noise in a while; when he looks past Harold, the monitor is refreshing silently on a black screen.

"I do." John sights down the aisle, in the opposite direction of Harold, testing the weight and grip. "It's my second favorite. Favorite, if I had to pick a 9mm."

"Which is the first?"

"The M1911. This model replaced it in the 90's, but my dad used a .45. First gun I ever fired." John feels his mouth quirk up. "It felt heavier, then."

"I never--" Harold clears his throat. "My mother tried to teach me when I was twelve. I didn't like it."

John stills instantly. Harold never offers information about his childhood. In fact, as far as John can remember (and his memory for Things Harold is impeccable), he's never even mentioned his mother; his father, only twice (skill with engines and a fondness for birds). 

"It's not for everyone," John suggests, when more information is not forthcoming. "Especially if you've had a bad experience."

Finch gives him an unimpressed look in retaliation for his fishing. "I'll have you know I was a decent shot at soda cans. But since the only reason to fire a gun is to kill something with it, I soon lost interest."

"Really?" John asks, tilting the Beretta in his hand. "The only reason?" He hasn't killed anything with a firearm in quite some time. But he's certainly discharged them.

"I think," Harold says, slowly, "that as a child I did not appreciate the value of what lies in between. 'Stopping power', if you will. It did not occur to me that some people might need to be stopped, much less how to reconcile that with the value of all human life."

John exhales loudly, drawing on his hard-won calm. "I wasn't going to drop Billick."

Harold sniffs. "I wasn't talking about you, Mr. Reese. Do you really imagine that I don't think sometimes-- that I don't wonder if it would be better to--"

"To stop them permanently," John finishes. "So why don't you?"

"Because it is not my place to decide," Harold says. "And because it would be unfair to ask you to do something I was not willing to do myself."

John considers telling Harold how he would be willing to kill on his command, how he would trust Harold's judgement in all things, how Harold has _earned_ that trust. But he doesn't. He suspects that Finch already knows.

It is a strange thing, he thinks, to be owned and kept but so rarely used. It's as if Harold values him for something other than his lethality, though John can't imagine what. 

John wipes his gear down with a rag and packs the bag of cleaning supplies back up, folds the drop cloth into even eighths. The setting sun halos Harold's head and shoulders, his spiky hair shot through with white and gold. 

"Dinner?" John asks absentmindedly, like he has every evening for the last week, and instead of 'Thai', or 'Italian', or 'Indian', Finch says, "You're not dressed to go out. Does the invitation still stand?"


	3. Chapter 3

John doesn't panic on the walk home, exactly, but he is preoccupied. He doesn't remember what he has in his fridge, but he knows it's not enough to create anything up to snuff. Harold eats at four and five-star restaurants regularly, and although John makes a pretty mean Spag Bol, he's not sure his pantry can back him up on it this time. 

"We should stop and get wine," he says, hoping to leave Harold in the neighborhood liquor store while he makes an emergency run to the deli next door for chicken breasts, asparagus, and onions. Or maybe pork and tomatoes for cassoulet, he thinks he has half an Italian loaf at home he could toast and turn into bread crumbs--

"I'm sure whatever you have on hand is fine." Finch stops next to him at the corner to wait for the light to change. "To be honest, I'm not terribly hungry."

"Oh," John says. "Me neither." He doesn't think he could get food down if he tried, but that's the benefit of playing host-- always something to busy yourself with other than sitting down and eating. 

The pedestrian walk sign flashes white, and it takes Harold pressing a gloved palm to the back of John's jacket for him to step down into the street. 

"While Ms. Shaw is not the first person I would go to for insight on interpersonal matters," Harold's saying as they round the block to John's building, as if his hand isn't burning a brand into John's skin through three layers of wool, silk, and cotton, "I've come to value her frankness. It occurs to me that I have not been forthcoming with you concerning my intentions."

"Your intentions," John repeats, half because he knows he's supposed to say something and half because the words are so strange, and they feel so heavy and sweet in his mouth. He lets Harold herd him up the stairs, and fumbles for his key in his trouser pocket. His fingers feel clumsy, numb with cold, but he's pretty sure he's sweating under the coat. He knew they were doing this, he just didn't expect-- he didn't think that today-- it was an absolutely _usual_ day.

But maybe that was the point, he thinks, as he swings the door open and steps into the loft. 

"Yes." Finch shrugs out of his coat and hangs it on the hook on the back of the door, settling his hat above the collar and dropping his gloves into the pocket. John does the same automatically, folding his own coat over the back of a kitchen chair. "It seems foolish in retrospect. Your lack of romantic interest in Mr. Pierce does not, in itself, indicate an interest in me."

"Harold," John says slowly, confused. "Are we dating?"

Finch looks at him sharply, but not without amusement. "That is precisely what I wanted to discuss. I don't generally find that terminology useful."

John shrugs, ignoring the lump in his throat. He kind of thought they _were_ dating, was the thing. Or at least not _not_ dating.

"Especially," Harold says, stepping in so close that John has to look down to meet his gaze "since we already have a working relationship. Dating is about getting to know someone for the express purpose of a romantic entanglement."

His hand brushes John's side, and there's really nothing to do but hug him properly. "Sure," John says, flooded with warmth and endorphins. He's hugged Harold before, but only ever in the context of close calls, and they always separated quickly, embarrassed and awkward. Now, though, Harold doesn't even seem to mind John rumpling his suit, even in grimy jeans and a frayed t-shirt. 

"Seeing as we already know each other very well," Harold says, "I don't think all that is really necessary. Do you?"

"I-- No." John ducks his head down, brushing his nose against Harold's hair. His scalp smells warm, clean, and slightly citrus-y. "Then what are we--"

"Whatever we like."

John squeezes him closer, caught off guard and unwilling to lose even a second of this, whatever it is. 

"John," Harold says, right in his ear as usual, but it's soft, uncertain and completely present, no distance between them at all. "What is it you want?"

"Everything," John admits, and hides his mouth in the rough dip over Harold's collarbone, the grid of surgical scars. He squeezes his eyes shut, suddenly terrified. It came out before he could assess whether it was a good idea, and Harold goes stiff in his arms.

John counts long, terrible seconds of Harold Finch's silence. He doesn't realize he's shaking until Harold's hand runs over the back of his neck, petting him gently.

"Sorry," John rasps, and knows he should pull away, but holds Harold tighter instead, caught between fight and flight for the first time in many, many years.

"Never apologize for being honest with me," Harold says, stroking John's hair, and John shudders. "I will admit that I was expecting a more specific answer. I'm at something of a loss."

"Oh," John says, past the ache in his throat.

"Let's try this. Would you like to go to bed with me now?"

John nods into Harold's shoulder, careful not to jolt his neck.

Harold hums. John hears it, feels it in the empty spaces of his own chest and belly, rattling him like a wave. "I'm glad. I'd like that too."

John dares a smile, tilts his head to kiss Harold's throat. Harold sighs, and lets his hand slide down John's neck to his shoulder, pushing him gently away. John goes, face and neck still prickling icily with nervousness and vertigo, the sense of having just avoided a fall down a flight of stairs. 

"Shall we?" Harold offers John his hand, like they're in Harold's house instead of John's. But of course the loft is Harold's; _everything_ of John's is Harold's, not because Harold purchased it, but because John has turned it all over, turns every bit of himself over to Harold every day.

He lets Harold lead him into his own bedroom, and he's just gotten his sea legs, he's just stepped back from the ledge when Harold says "What's this?"

He'd forgotten about the collar. How, he's not quite sure, except that it's just been there on his bedside table, curled around his key ring or cell phone or a dish of spare change, a glass of water or a magazine, it's just been there. A _belonging_ , so perfectly at home that John had simply... forgotten it.

Harold picks it up, runs the familiar leather through his fingers, and John falls down the stairs with something sick in his throat, he staggers to the end of the bed and sits down with his head in his hands.

"I had wondered where this went," Harold muses, from somewhere far away but also much too close. Reality is immediate and wretched and John cannot escape it. 

The bed creaks and dips next him. Through the fan of his own fingers John sees Harold's Oxfords settle parallel to his own work boots on the floor. _Knocking boots_ , he thinks, hysterically.

"Oh, John," Harold sighs, and rests his hand on John's knee, warm through the denim. "Is this-- do you--" He clears his throat. "You really do mean 'everything', don't you."

John nods, miserably. He knows exactly how this is going to go.  Harold's read about this. Harold knows an excellent therapist, no, a _number_ of excellent therapists. Harold thinks it best that they keep some distance from one another until John is better, and of course it would never change how much Harold respects him--

"I'm afraid I haven't--" Harold's saying, running his thumb back and forth along the stitch of John's jeans, the frayed patch over his knee "Not for some time. But John, you can't think that I would deny you that, if you wanted-- if you needed--"

John stares helplessly at their shoes, mute and at sea, drowning in something he doesn't know the dimensions of, or even which direction of it is up.

"Yes, it's been quite some time," Harold murmurs, the way he does when he's working something out for himself, usually a person. Harold doesn't need to talk aloud to make sense of machines, of money, of raw information. It's people's motivations that he pours over when he's at his desk and John is in the field, thinking aloud so that John can step in, offer his expertise. "I'd like to do some research, first. Acquire supplies. We'll have to discuss goals, and boundaries. Given your personal history, I'm afraid you might not have a good grasp of your own limits, if you'll forgive me saying so--" 

John finally lifts his head from his hands, slanting a gaze over at Harold. His brow is furrowed; the brain behind it is working, planning. Building. 

Then Harold's face sharpens, and turns to him. "But those are not immediate problems. Tell me, John, is it a want? Or a need? For tonight, I mean."

"Tonight?" John echoes.

"Yes, John, tonight." Harold smiles, a bit wryly. "Do try to keep up."

It's meant to make John laugh, and he does. It stutters out of him like a cough, like relief. "I guess-- I guess I haven't thought about it."

Harold eyes him intently; part amusement, but mostly calculating interest. "I see. Well." He stands, the hand sliding away from John's leg and leaving him cold. 

It doesn't last long. The hand darts to Harold's waistcoat and begins deftly undoing buttons, and John's entire body flushes with heat. 

"If I open this closet," Harold asks, turning away from John to hobble towards the double doors, "Am I going to find hangers, or ordnance?"

"Both," John admits. "I can move them, if you--" _If you want_ , he thinks _. I'll let you have the whole closet for your suits, if you want_. He should build a proper weapons locker, anyway, like the one out in the main room.

Harold unfastens the waistcoat and starts on his dress shirt one-handed, opening the folding door. "Not now." He hangs his waistcoat and his belt from a wire hanger and the shirt from a padded one, settling the rung on the doorknob. Then his head swivels towards John, still sitting motionless on the end of the bed. "Aren't you going to undress?"

John has never stripped so quickly in his life, with the exception of the time he got splashed with unknown chemicals during a firefight in a meth lab. And the time he was actually on fire. And the time they were cornered in a school and Shaw blew a hole in the floor and they swam out through the sewer--

John folds his jeans and shirt nearly before setting them on the floor next to the bed, stuffs his socks into the boots. He's been out of the service long enough that he's no longer above leaving his dirty clothes in a pile, but Harold's meticulous sartorial scrutiny is more frightening than the threat of a morning bunk check.

"Lie down on your back, if you would," Harold says, leaning with one hand on the wall to balance himself as he steps out of his slacks. 

John obeys reluctantly, watching Harold struggle from across the room. It looks painful. He clearly doesn't want to put weight on his bad leg, but it's also too stiff for him to bend while taking the weight onto his good one. He manages, though. John makes a mental note to bring a hard-backed chair into the bedroom in the future, so Harold has something better to brace himself on. 

Or find a way to convince Harold to let John undress him, head to toe. John's hands itch. He rubs them on his legs, stretching worn cotton boxers. He'd start with the shoes, kneeling at Harold's feet, unfastening the garters and rolling Harold's socks down one by one.

"Hands at the headboard, please, Mr. Reese." Harold says, with a tone of amusement he usually reserves for Bear "In future, if you will not restrain yourself--"

"I can," John assures him, but wraps his hands around the posts anyway. He'll keep them there, come hell or high water.

Harold's gaze softens. "I'm certain that you _can_ , John. But you needn't force yourself to." He hobbles over towards the bed on bare feet, only a pair of forest green silk boxers between him and the air. 

John swallows. Clenches his hands on the bars. Sweat prickles along the back of his neck, down his shoulders and spine. 

Harold seats himself at the top of the bed, piling John's two pillows one over the other and arranging himself with his padded back towards the headboard and his legs straight on the mattress. "If you'd like, in the future," he says, reaching down to stroke John's arm, elbow to wrist, "I can manage that for you." The hand trails down John's tricep to his armpit, firm, steady motion. John can't resist clenching a little, showing off the muscle. "You could probably get yourself out of most anything I could come up with, but it would take effort."

John focuses on breathing, all too aware of the soft cotton.

"Would you like that, Mr. Reese?" Harold asks, running his hand along the swell of John's left pectoral and then the column of his throat. "To have the opportunity to give in? To not have to think? To be able to struggle all you want, and know that it didn't matter, because I _had_ you?"

John dimly recognizes that Finch is pumping him for information. Manipulating him in a strange game of carefully calculated twenty questions, where John's body will answer for him whether he likes it or not.

He can't bring himself to care. He arches up into the firm press of Harold's palm on his throat.

Harold lets go. "I'm afraid that's not something I'm comfortable with," he says, in that soft, genuine voice John's just getting used to, just beginning to _need_. "Choking, I mean."

"Okay," John rasps, and turns to look at him, desperate. 

Harold has his glasses off. His eyes look bigger, like this. His face is more vulnerable. John aches to kiss him, chin and cheek and nose and brow. Harold sighs, and his narrow, thickly furred chest expands and contracts with it, his soft belly rises and falls. John turns bodily towards him on his hip and side without meaning to, needing closeness, needing skin. It makes his wrists twist, one over the other, and Harold reaches out to stroke over John's knuckles, whispering ' _let go, let go, it's all right_ '.

John lets go, and curls into Harold's side, his head in Harold's lap. He's shaking. He doesn't know why, but he can't seem to stop.

"Shh," Harold murmurs, stroking John's hair, his forehead, the tips of his ears. "Shh, it's all right. You're so good." 

Harold is warm, and he smells familiar, citrus and tea and old books. John molds his too-big hand around one knobby knee, presses his cheek into Harold's soft, furry thighs. Anything. He'd do anything for this.

"I was so lucky to find you," Harold whispers, and scratches lightly at his scalp with blunt fingernails. "You're so very, very good, John."

He's not. "I'm not," John says, mouth so dry it just slips out of him, barely a breath. "Harold, I'm not."

"You are," Harold strokes his cheek. "You are brave, and loyal, and talented, and you've been taken advantage of because of it."

John feels vaguely sick. "Don't absolve me. You can't." No one can, at this point. The very idea would be laughable, were it not so terrifying. A man that could excuse John's actions is a man John could not work for. A world that excused them, he would not want to live in.

"I would never presume to," Harold says. "And I won't tell you that you haven't done dreadful things, because you have. As--" he swallows. "As I have."

John rather doubts there is any comparison to be made; even if Harold (wrongly) accepts responsibility for every life taken by the government's abuse of the machine, he won't approach John's count, either in number or in atrocity. 

"We all have," Harold whispers, brushing back John's hair from his brow. "Because we're all dangerous, broken people. I am simply telling you, John Reese, that you are good, and I am grateful to have found you."

John shudders despite himself, wracked by some kind of moral dissonance. He does not believe it. But Harold believes it. And Harold Finch knows things. He _trusts_ Harold Finch to know things. 

"And so beautiful when you move," Harold's saying, low rolling murmurs that remind John of empty mornings in the stacks, listening to Harold recite something he doesn't recognize and was probably not meant to hear, "So quiet and careful and strong. It's a joy to watch you."

John burrows his face into the soft angles of Harold's lap, rubbing his cheek and nose firmly against the swell of Harold's cock. He has to-- he can't listen to this. He doesn't want it to stop, but he needs it to, it's cracking him open and pulling pieces of him out that he can't bear to look at. 

"Oh," Harold breathes, when John presses his open mouth to the silk, lapping at the stirring flesh underneath. "Oh, I see. All right, then."

Anyone else might have been insulted or put off, without more appreciative commentary, but John has long since learned that the things Finch says contain less information than the _way_ he says them. And he said that-- softly. Breathily. With faint surprise that John knows to be eagerness.

It's been several years since John has sucked anyone off; not that it matters, because he's never done _this_ before. This is an experience he's never had before and might never have again. _Sex with Harold_ exists separately from _Sex_ with anyone else, a discrete category with its own special goals and parameters. John has loved before, even been in love. But he's never _needed_ someone like this. Even as he pulls Harold's boxers down and takes Harold's cock into his mouth, he has the sense that he's doing something else than just the act; that John's lips on Harold's flesh, the pulse of Harold's blood under John's tongue, is just a crude, finite metaphor for what John wants from him, what John needs to give him.

Harold's hands are in his hair, not pulling, but not just resting, either-- he guides John wordlessly, coaxes his head into a tilt, asks with thumbs and fingertips for John to open his throat, and John does so instantly, taking Harold in until he can't anymore. He doesn't gag, but his jaw aches, he feels his mouth fill with saliva that smears sloppily over Harold's groin, drips down onto his balls. John squeezes his eyes shut, ashamed, but Harold is petting him now, not directing, just praising, and past the rushing in his ears John hears soft, wet pants that start out as words-- _yes, like that, just keep, oh, yes, perfect._

Harold's hips jerk under him, just a twitch, and John pulls off with a gasp, gulping for air. His face feels hot and his chin and nose are wet with his own spit.

"Oh," Harold says, and stares down at him glassily. "Oh, I'm sorry--"

"Just--" John's throat aches. It feels good, like muscle soreness after a hard workout. Like he's earned it. He gently brackets Harold's hips with his hands and coaxes Harold to lie down on his back, head on the pillow. "Just let me. Don't--"

"All right," Harold whispers at the ceiling, and John sinks down on him again, fucking his throat and mouth on Harold's cock so hard and rhythmic that Harold needn't thrust up at all. John keeps his hands on Harold's hips anyway, not holding him down, just holding on. 

The skin under his left palm is rough and hot, rippling with scar tissue. John caresses it helplessly, wracked with tenderness and admiration.

"Reese," Harold gasps, "John--" and comes down John's throat with a spasm that John feels somewhere deep. 

He keeps sucking and swallowing until a quiet, uncomfortable noise escapes Finch, and moves to nuzzling at Finch's inner thighs, hiding his face in soft skin as Finch's legs twitch and his breathing slows.

"Thank you, I--" Something rattles and scrapes above his head, and then Finch's hand is back on his neck, holding something stiff and smooth that brushes against John's shoulder. "Would you like--"

The brass buckle of the collar knocks against John's collarbone, heavy and cold, and he kisses Harold's thigh fervently, shuddering, still unable to look up and show his face.

"I'll have to order a more appropriate--" Harold swallows. "The name isn't right."

"It's fine," John rasps, kissing and kissing from the scratch of Harold's pubic hair down to the smooth inside of his knee. He'll belong to Harold Wren, to Crane, to Egret, to any and all of them. 

"It is most certainly not," Harold snaps, and suddenly John's being dragged up the bed by his hair. He scrambles to follow, careful not to jostle Harold's hip. "Look at me."

John looks. Harold's face is splotchy and shining with exertion, his hair mashed awkwardly to one side, his lips tight and small; irritated. Something in John cowers from him at the same time as it glows with want and adoration.

"If you are to belong to me," Harold says, and drapes the collar over John's neck, the smooth plate sliding over his nape, "then you will belong to _me_. Do you understand?"

John's coming into his boxers untouched before Harold finishes cinching the buckle, shuddering and shaking full body, his head bowed and his arms braced to hold himself up.

"Yes," Harold says, and tucks the tongue of the collar through the loop. It's tight, but not strangling; John feels every inch of it the whole way round. "Yes, it seems you do."

John gasps and whimpers, unable to move. He's afraid he'll fall on Harold. He'll just-- stay here. He can stay in this position a long time, he won't get tired--

"If you wouldn't mind cleaning us up," Harold suggests, stroking John's cheek with the back of his hand. "I'm afraid I'm too tired for a shower."

John gets himself off the bed and into the bathroom. It's suddenly easy, Harold's command releasing him from paralysis. He wets a washcloth in the sink and takes care of his dirty boxers while he's there, dropping them into the laundry basket outside the door. The fabric caught most of it, but John's a mess; semen and pre-cum crusting on his groin, a bead of it sliding down his leg. He's still breathing hard. That's never happened to him before. It wasn't even particularly pleasurable; mostly felt like being hit hard enough that he blacked out for a second. But he's relieved. The aftershocks are fading into something soft and sleepy and clean. He feels _fed_.

"Today, if you please," Harold calls from the bedroom, with what sounds like genuine impatience. John feels himself smiling. That's Finch, all right. 

He cleans Harold off by alternating strokes of the towel with kisses along his legs and belly, so full of tenderness and joy that his teeth hurt. When he lies down next to Harold and pulls the sheets over them, Finch lays a hand on his arm, and proceeds to direct John as to how to arrange the both of them ("And take that thing off, please, lest you strangle in your sleep." John had done so reluctantly). 

It ends with Harold on his right side, head propped on both pillows to support his neck, and John curled against his back, hand stroking Harold's thighs and belly and knees as he drops kisses onto the lightly furred skin of Harold's left shoulder.

Finch harrumphs. "I do hope you don't move much in your sleep, Mr. Reese."

"Still as the dead," John promises, ghosting his mouth over Harold's nape, the delicate terrain of fused vertebrae and metal pins. He probably won't sleep much, anyway. John's not so used to happiness that he can afford to be unconscious for it. "What do you want for breakfast?"

Harold snores softly in reply.

* * *

  
By the end of April the seedlings are all between two and three inches long, Bear is shedding the last of his winter coat, and Finch has begun to leave his belongings at John's apartment.

"Mr. Reese," he asks, when John ascends the stairs to the library balancing a cardboard holder of tea, coffee, and the crude oil cut with whole milk that Shaw insists on calling macchiato, "have you seen my reading glasses?"

John sets their breakfast down carefully, edging a curious Bear away with his toe, and reaches into his pocket to extract the bifocals in their leather case. Harold submits to John putting them on him, probably because he is loathe to interrupt whatever it is he's doing to his vintage Garrard turntable. John uses the opportunity to wipe a small smudge of black grease from Harold's jaw, earning a dry look in return.

"No numbers yet?"

"Would I be doing this if there were?"

"I don't know, Harold," John teases, taking a long sip of his coffee. "You are really serious about vinyl."

Harold grunts distractedly, his attention consumed by the motor. John watches him work for ten more minutes before his stomach growls, and he coaxes Finch out of the chair with the promise of lemon poppy-seed muffins. Of course, because Harold is down to shirtsleeves and John's personal favorite waistcoat, and there isn't a number, they get preoccupied along the way.

"Should have stayed the night," John murmurs against Harold's temple, nuzzling at his hair. "Missed you."

"This weekend," Harold promises. "If we're not busy."

"We're always busy. Doesn't mean you have to be here at six AM every day." It goes without saying that Harold staying the night means late mornings in. John's tried to be better about it, but it's hard to exercise self discipline when waking up with someone he adores. Someone who deserves, at the very least, a morning blowjob and an omelet.

"I'm sure you appreciate the value of having a consistent schedule," Finch says.

"Mmmm," John hums, sliding greedy hands down Harold's back, clutching at his soft sides through the waistcoat, just over his hips. John gets a good grip on both of them-- gentle, but firm-- and pulls Harold's lower body tight against his own, loving the plush little belly that the position allows him to grind into.

"Mr. Reese," Harold says, with that prim little voice he gets whenever John pulls one over on him, "If you could please refrain from man-handling my--"

"Your love handles, Finch?" John teases, hiding his smile in Finch's hair. He's still giddy with the warmth of it sometimes, of finally having permission to touch. "That's what they're for."

"I don't need to be reminded of how old and out of shape I am," Finch grumps, and bats lightly at John's hands with his own, little flutters that don't do much to convince John to move them. "Which I wouldn't be, if you didn't insist on bringing me pastries--"

John grins even wider, chest tight with joy and affection. He kisses Harold's hair, his temple, his ear, before nipping lightly at the shell of it. "I like it. More cushion."

"Mr. _Reese_ \--" Finch does push his hands down, then, and his expression is nothing short of mortified. It shifts to a very red mixture of embarrassment and annoyance when he sees John's face, the idiot smile he can't seem to quash. Finch sighs, loudly; his resignation sigh. His 'if you _must_ ' sigh. The 'I see you are insisting, Mr. Reese' sigh, and John _is_ insisting. He smooths his hands back up Finch's thighs, curves his palms around the plump rear. Squeezes.

Harold _squeaks_. It's a tiny, soft little noise, and he immediately swallows it down, but John spends most of his waking life with Finch's voice in his ear, Finch's breathing, and he hears it. He hears everything. 

"I like it," he repeats, squeezing and stroking with his thumbs, bringing their bodies together over and over with a rustle of cloth. 

It's true. He loves Harold's body, so different from anyone else that John's ever been with like this; Kara was like him, built for functional strength and endurance, muscles hard and weaponized and skin scarred, hands and nose broken more times than she could probably count. Zoe and Saunders were both of them sleek and pretty; the kind of magazine perfect that came from personal trainers and regular gym visits, expensive diets and skin care. Finch's body was _his_ \-- that of a middle aged man who spent most of his time in a desk chair, typing and staring at an array of computer screens; only Finch's typing and staring was saving lives, helping people, and John _adores_ him for it. Adores his long fingers and thin arms, narrow chest and soft thighs, the stiff curve of his damaged spine--

Bear barks a greeting and leaps up from his bed, and Harold manages to untangle himself from John's grip before John figures out what, exactly, that forebodes.

"Great," Shaw says from the stairs. "Now I have to go home and bleach my eyeballs." 

"I brought you coffee?" John tries, reluctantly dragging his hands away from Harold's shoulders. He shoves them in his trouser pockets after a moment, just to be sure they don't migrate back. "And a scone." 

Shaw stares, managing to look completely unimpressed with John while the rest of her body is doing a fair approximation of 'So happy to see you!' with Bear-- scratches and pets and mock wrestling. Bear whines in abject happiness, licks her palms and wrists as he wriggles his rear end against the floor.

"Fine," she says, stalking past them to snatch the coffee and the pasty bag off the desk. "But I'm taking the dog. Call me if something blows up. C'mon, boy."

"Well," John says, trying to convince himself that he's annoyed, really, he is "there goes our breakfast."

"Hmm." Harold agrees, and settles back into his chair, reattaching the belt and slipping the motor back into its housing. "Just as well. I've been meaning to return this. We can stop at the diner on the way home."

John bites down on 'what diner?', because there is only one 'The Diner', and as far as he can tell, only one 'Home', and they aren't convenient to one another.

Finch closes the lid on the record player and gestures grandly at if. "If you would? I'm afraid it's quite heavy."

It's not that heavy. 

* * *

  
'Home' is an unassuming 2 bedroom in Morningside Heights, in a completely average apartment building. John is absolutely certain that it's just another bolthole that he hasn't learned about yet, but when he sets the Garrard down on the coffee table, there's no dust. The place feels lived-in, even if the kitchen is a little sparse. John leans slowly against the arm of the sofa to see behind it. No serious dust back there, either, although he's pretty certain that's a nickel and a rubber band.

"Go on," Harold calls from the bathroom, over the hiss of the sink. "Look around, it's not terribly exciting."

On the contrary, John hasn't been this excited in a long time. The place is full of books, but not collectibles or first editions; books with cracked spines and dog-eared pages and bookmarks sticking out of them. One of Harold's nicest paisley ties is draped over the back of a college chair emblazoned with the MIT seal, forgotten. There is, to John's horror and delight, what appears to be a stray dress sock dangling off the side of the laundry basket in the open closet. The closet also contains absolutely normal closet things: spare batteries, a Coleman lantern, a pack of Swiffer pads, and a battered tackle-box full of screws, nails, and assorted household detritus.

It's been one thing to have Harold spending the odd night at John's flat, keeping a spare suit there, occasionally forgetting his reading glasses on John's bedside table. John is aware that Harold is a fellow human being who snores and drools and gets hair in the drain when he shaves. This though, this is a whole other level. 

"I bet you leave towels on the floor sometimes," John informs him, with quiet glee. "Where's the ironing board? I knew you didn't get shirts that stiff without help."

"Sorry to break the illusion," Harold says, dryly. "If you're quite finished, I have something for you."

John could probably get a good five more hours of entertainment from skulking around Finch's exceptionally unexceptional home (without even counting the books), but he follows Harold into the bedroom anyway. He gets a glimpse of the (unmade) queen-size bed and the dense-looking hardback resting open on the pillow before Harold pulls the top drawer of his dresser open and John's mouth goes dry. He's on his knees on the carpet before he can think about it.

Collar coiled in his hand, Harold looks down at him with surprise. John just swallows. He's shivering under his suit jacket, needy and eager and nervous all at once.

"Well," Harold says. "That answers that question. Are you sure you wouldn't prefer to wait?"

Wait for what, John wonders, slightly dizzy. It's not like he's going to become _more_ Harold's than he already is. 

A hand brushes his cheek, smelling faintly of treated leather, and John whines through his nose. 

"It's just my initials, I'm afraid," Harold's saying, petting him slowly while his other hand toys with the solid brass buckle, "But I'll tell you now, if you like. And then you'll know what they stand for."

It takes John a moment just to understand, and longer still to decide. He can't, of course. It's not up to him, how much or how little Harold reveals. He searched for _this_ place for years and never came close. 

It's not so much the name that matters, but what John could do with it. A birth certificate, a social, and from there Finch's whole life before he became Finch, a life he sacrificed everything to hide. His hometown. His parents. Everyone who knew him as a teenager, who could be tracked down and questioned-- "I--" he whispers, fingers curling uselessly against the carpet, "I don't want to--"

"John." The hand tightens in his hair, guiding his face up. Harold is smiling at him. "I don't offer things I'm not prepared to give."

"It doesn't matter to me," John says, and realizes as he says it that it's true "You're you. You're you and I'm-- I'm yours."

"You are, aren't you?" Harold breathes, rubbing his thumb briskly over the shell of John's ear. "You really are."

Stiff leather lined with deerskin slides over John's throat, and he tips his head back in welcome. It fits like it was made for him; because, of course, it was. 


End file.
